


the land at the end of our toes

by dizzyondreams



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, stargazing fools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:59:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1410754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzyondreams/pseuds/dizzyondreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was Jean’s idea, initially. Eren poked fun at him a little bit, but relented because it sounded nice. Stargazing. Lying out. Summer nights were good for staring up at the stars, talking in whispers and sharing body heat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the land at the end of our toes

It was Jean’s idea, initially. Because he was secretly a hopeless romantic even though their relationship could barely be described as ‘romantic’. Eren poked fun at him a little bit, but relented because it sounded nice. Stargazing. Lying out. Summer nights were good for staring up at the stars, talking in whispers and sharing body heat. 

They drove out of the town in Jean’s crappy car, and Eren watched the street lights pick out the sharp features of Jean’s face, bathing him in a sickly orange glow. He looked good, his hair sleep mussed from waking up in Eren’s bed. Even the end-of-term-exams shadows under his eyes didn’t ruin it. Eren leaned across to kiss him on the cheek, and grinned against his stubbly cheek when Jean hummed happily.

“Where are we going?” Eren asked, leaning back into his seat and drawing his knees to his chest. He ignored Jean’s pointed look at his dirty shoes on the seat, and instead picked at a hole in the knee of his jeans. 

“Just…out.” Jean replied, and Eren nodded and watched the street lights gradually fade out until he could barely see him.

There was a lot of countryside around the tiny town they lived in. It was barely anything more than a post office and a pub, and Eren ached to leave. He thanked God that Jean had a car, so they could drive to the next city over or out to the coast if they felt like it. Living in a small place was claustrophobic, but leaving it was like breathing after being underwater after a long time. Sometimes Eren forgot how big the world was outside. He stared out across the countryside as they sped along in the dark, Jean reckless on the straight and careful on the corners. 

“Isn’t it weird to think how little of the world we’ve seen.” Eren mumbled against the window, breath fogging over the dark smudges of trees and bushes. “Living in this shitty town, I mean.”

Jean made a noncommittal noise. “I guess so.”

“Feel small.” Eren muttered, and felt the corner of his mouth tug up when Jean snorted and reached across to shove him in the side. 

“Don’t get all existential on me now, dude.”

“Fuck off, Jean.” He said easily, and leant his head against the cool glass. “You got any smokes?”

“Glove compartment, light me one too.”

It wasn’t long before they pulled into a lay-by and grabbed a blanket from the boot of the car to lie on. The field they jumped the fence into was huge, stretching out into the blackness of the night. When Eren lay down, he felt like he was floating in a great pool of darkness. Jean was a steady, warm anchor next to him, his hand weighing Eren down so he didn’t drift away. 

The sky was a dome above them, stars stretching out on all sides. Eren felt the claustrophobia of his small town melt away as he stared up at the sky, Jean’s deep voice in his ear and his hand sweaty in his own. 

He stretched his hands up, and it was so dark he could barely see them, they were only two hand-shaped holes in the fabric of the universe. Eren wondered if he clenched them into fists he could rip twin holes in the night sky. He wondered what would rush in, and wondered if whatever did would save him from his shitty, dead-end life.

“What are you thinking about?” Jean murmured, and Eren let his hands fall carefully to his sides. He turned his head to look at the Jean-shaped lump of darkness next to him and grinned, slightly off-kilter.

“Destroying the world, maybe.” He murmured back, and somehow, despite all the space around them, his world narrowed right to the gap between their bodies. He shuffled closer to Jean’s side, until they were hip to hip, their clasped hands on Jean’s chest.

“I wouldn’t recommend that.” Jean said, quiet amusement in his voice. “You’ll never get to learn what’s out there, otherwise.”

He made a good point, and Eren rolled over onto his side and untangled their hands so he could press a kiss to Jean’s stubbly jaw. He splayed out his hand along Jean’s throat, and kissed him until they were breathless and Jean’s hand was fisted in Eren’s shaggy hair.

Eren was so infatuated he wanted to crawl into Jean’s chest and lodge there. He wanted to kiss the parts of Jean that made him lash out, made him lose faith in himself, made him miserable. He wanted to take them between his galaxy destroying hands and watch as the blackness leaked out between his star burned fingers. He wanted so many things, but all he could do was bring his teeth to the solid line of Jean’s jaw and bite down.

“The world spins at 1040 miles per hour.” He mumbled into the shell of Jean’s ear, and smiled as Jean laughed softly.

“Yeah, I love it when you talk dirty.” He murmured, trying for sardonic but just sounding ragged. Eren pressed his lips to Jean’s ear and blew softly. Jean laughed again and cringed away.

“Do you feel dizzy from it?” He whispered, feeling drunk from the smell of Jean’s hair and the way his broad hands were curled around Eren’s waist. From the way the earth was spinning completely unaware of two teenagers kissing in a field. It felt like freedom, and his lips hurt from brushing them over Jean’s rough face.

“I feel dizzy from _you_.” Jean said, and squeezed Eren’s waist until he ducked his head to kiss him again with a sigh.

“You’re awful.” Eren muttered, and kissed Jean once more before rolling off to lie next to him again. He stretched his hands to the sky again, but didn’t feel like ripping it open anymore. He dropped his hands back to his sides and stared up at the stars, breathless from the taste of Jean and the way the sky stretched to the very ends of the earth. “Let’s never go back.”

“My mum would send the national guard out looking for me.” Jean muttered tiredly, one arm slung over his face and legs thrown across Eren’s. “So would yours.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Eren shot back. His voice seemed loud in the hush of the night, like they were in the quiet vacuum of space. There weren’t any crickets chirping, even. “We’ll dye our hair, change our names. I’ll masquerade as a woman for a time, we’ll move to Spain and start a small business over there.”

“As much as I’d love to see you in a dress,” Jean’s hand snaked out to grasp Eren’s, his palm wide and warm and comforting. He squeezed, once, and shot Eren a smile he could barely make out in the darkness. “That’s not possible.”

Cradled in the inky belly of the earth, anything seemed possible. They could dig their way through the black soil until the light at the core of the world lit their faces with the same unhealthy orange as the street lights. Jean would still be sleep-mussed with pillow creases on his cheek, and maybe the tight feeling in Eren’s chest would ease. The tightness of responsibility and adult fears. Of the future and wondering where the tall boy next to him fit into it. They could dig their way to a place where nobody knew their names or cared about who they wanted to fuck.

“Isn’t it weird to think that stars are burning planets.” Jean murmured, snapping Eren out of his reverie of blackened fingernails and complete anonymity. “That used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kid.”

“What if in thousands of years time there’s two guys doing exactly this but the star they’re looking at is Earth.” Eren whispered back, folding his arms behind his head. 

Jean laughed uncomfortably and nudged Eren in the thigh. “Yeah, stop that.”

Eren shrugged and settled back to gaze at the tiny pinpricks in the fabric of the world until his eyes grew fuzzy and heavy. “Do you know any constellations?” He murmured, letting his eyes rest for a moment and turning into the warmth of Jean’s side.

His tired eyes followed the line of Jean’s pointing finger as he raised it to the sky. His voice was a low mumble in Eren’s ear, “Only the simple ones. Orion’s belt?” His finger blotted out a swathe of stars as he gestured to the row of three stars. Eren tuned him out after a minute, staring at the straight line of Jean’s nose in the dark and imagining he could pick out the freckles there. He wondered if freckles had their own constellations, and made a mental note to check to see if Jean carried Orion’s belt and the Big Dipper on his skin like the night sky.

“I love you, you know.” He mumbled into Jean’s neck, tasting the chemical taste of his cologne, and under that the salt taste of his skin. “You know that, right.”

“Yeah.” Jean sounded surprised, and he brought his hand to Eren’s hair to keep him close. “I know that. I love you too.”

Jean was like smoking a cigarette in the wind. Irritating and frustrating and sometimes not even worth it. But when it went well it was _good_. It went well a lot more than it used to, now. Mutual attraction and no small amount of lust brought them together, but the superficial was never enough to make a relationship last. It was nights like these that made it something deeper. The way Jean looked when he woke up with bruises on his thighs from Eren’s fingers and his smile sleepy and soft. The way his body had shook against Eren’s as he cried about the unfairness of having a brain which turned everything grey for weeks at a time.

Eren nuzzled his face further into the crook of Jean’s shoulder, pressed a kiss to his chemical-tasting throat. He felt safe, curled up against the long line of his body, cradled in the velvet blackness. “Let’s never go back.” He repeated, and Jean replied:

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is just something i wrote for erejean week enjoy!!! title from the song sounds like balloons by biffy clyro


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